


the threat of normalcy

by aesphantasmal



Series: superpowers au [6]
Category: The Penumbra Podcast
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, I'm gonna be real? I don't like this, M/M, Other, Power Loss, but i don't want to look at it anymore, canon atypical that with shapeshifting, canon typical nureyev thinking he's gonna waste away, check the rest of the series for context, like mother gothel at the end of tangled, superpower au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-29
Updated: 2020-04-29
Packaged: 2021-03-02 01:54:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,866
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23907280
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aesphantasmal/pseuds/aesphantasmal
Summary: An incident during a routine heist causes the members of the Carte Blanche to be unable to use their powers. Some of them take this worse than others.
Relationships: Peter Nureyev/Juno Steel
Series: superpowers au [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1673617
Comments: 39
Kudos: 217





	the threat of normalcy

**Author's Note:**

> what's up bitches ya boi hasnt posted in a while and I was feeling guilty about my number of abandoned wips so I forced myself to finish this

Juno stood guard at the door to the Ares Technologies server room, looking up and down the darkened corridor.

"Think we've got anything coming for us, Rita?"

"Nothin' on the sensors, Boss." She closed her eyes for a second, putting her hand on her laptop screen. "I don't think Mista Ransom's got to the door yet. It doesn't feel like it's open. Feels like something else weird is there too, but I don't know what."

"Weird in what way? Should we be worried about it?"

"Don't think so, probably one of the Ares Tech employees keepin' something they shouldn't on the servers."

"Like that time you downloaded enough streams that it'd take ten years to watch them if you never slept onto the HCPD server?"

"I hid that better than they're hiding this!"

"Not everyone can be you, Rita." 

Rita suddenly looked up like she'd heard something. "Oh boss, ya got a comms call coming through —"

"— Juno, how are you and Rita doing?" came Buddy's voice through the comms.

"We're doing fine, nobody's come after us yet and Rita thinks we're in the clear. How's everyone else?"

"Jet and I have taken care of the guards," Buddy responded. "Vespa will tell us when she's in the control room."

"I'm almost at the vault. No signs of anyone or anything so far," Ransom said, speaking relatively quietly. 

"Good," Buddy said.

A few minutes later, Vespa's voice came over the line. "I'm going into the control room," she said. There was a brief burst of static as there always was when she phased through something, then, suddenly —

"—There's someone in the —"

Then, there was a loud blast.

Juno felt it like something knocking into him. It nearly knocked him completely to the floor, but he managed to just about stay balanced. Before he could even look for the source of the noise, he knew something was very, very wrong. It was… silent, inside of his head. He couldn't hear Rita at all.

"Rita?" He ran into the server room. "Ri — oh you're there."

"Yeah, boss?" Rita was typing away furiously at her comms. 

"I can't — I can't hear your thoughts —"

"I can't  _ feel _ the sensors an' the rest anymore either, Mista Steel, but I think I'm still in the system, I just —"

"Don't have your power anymore." Juno finished the sentence for her. He picked up the comms. "Hey Buddy—" He sighed and put them down. "Static."

"I don't think we're supposed to have comms signal in here, Mista Steel. I think that was me."

"Shit. I — ok. I don't know exactly where Jet and Buddy are, but they know where we are. Vespa and Ransom — I don't think we'll know where they are until we know what happened with their powers. Vespa might be stuck in the control room. Ransom…" Juno trailed off. He didn't know what Nureyev would do if the blast had hit him too, so for now he had to just hope it hadn't.

"So what do we do, Boss?"

Juno groaned. "Uuuuuuuugh. I  _ really  _ don't want to, but I think we have to stay put. Everyone knows where we are. We don't know where they are." He gripped his blaster tightly. "I'll keep watch. Yell if anyone comes through the walls. Uh, unless it's Vespa, I guess."

"Will do, Mista Steel."

Juno positioned himself in the doorway, so he could watch the corridor and keep Rita in his line of vision. It was eerily silent. Or maybe it always had been. Juno thinks he remembers Rita thinking it was creepy and quiet earlier. Either way, he keeps looking between the corridor and Rita. 

After about ten minutes of no sound but Rita's typing, the sound of approaching footsteps echoes like blaster fire. Juno sees two figures coming down the corridor, too shadowed to make out properly at this distance. He held his breath and hid himself more behind the doorframe as they came closer. He kept his blaster pointed down the corridor at them, until he realised who they were.

"You got hit with the power knockout too?" Juno said. It was a stupid question, given that Buddy wasn't glowing like she normally did.

"Yes," Jet replied. "We were hoping you and Rita had remained where you were."

"Well, we're here, aren't we?"

"You are."

"I'm pullin' as much as I can off of the servers so we can work out what they did," Rita shouted from the other room.

"Thank you, Rita," Buddy said.

"Is Vespa gonna be ok?" Juno said. "If the blast got her too —"

"Vespa will be fine. She'll just have to take the long route out of the control room. As I'm sure you know, Juno, I didn't build this little family of ours by looking for the most powerful people. You're all competent with or without your powers. It's just an advantage."

"Trust me, I'm not the one who needs to hear that."

"I'm aware."

"So are we waiting here until Vespa shows up?"

"Assuming that means you doubt Ransom will, yes."

"If he got hit with this, he's probably headed back to the Carte Blanche."

"Hmm."

It was about ten minutes before Vespa showed up, looking only slightly the worse for wear.

"What the hell is going on?"

"We're not sure," Buddy said. "Are you alright, darling?"

"I'm fine. There was only the one person in the control room, and I was out of the wall before they activated whatever that thing was," Vespa said.

"Good. If you're alright, you and Jet will protect Rita while she finishes getting whatever data she needs. Juno and I are going to try and find somewhere with comms signal and see if we can get in contact with Ransom."

"What, has he just vanished?"

"He should have been able to get to the server room by now. If he doesn't respond to his comms, we'll do a quick sweep of the vault area to make sure he hasn't encountered problems we didn't know about."

"Fine. Are we meeting you back at the ship?"

"Unless we get in contact to say anything different, then yes." And with that, Buddy set off down the corridor, Juno hurrying to keep up with her longer strides. Once they were out of the high-security areas, Buddy turned to Juno.

"Juno, darling, you know Peter best out of all of us." She pulled out her comms and started trying to get signal as she walked and talked. "And, while I'm not putting pressure on you to try and control what he does, I'd rather not have the family fracture over this."

"Yeah, I… I don't want him to leave, either."

Buddy gave him a knowing look, before saying "Just remember that I'd rather one or both of you spoke to me about any problems that this may cause that you aren't 100% sure you can solve yourselves."

"I will. And I'll, uh,  _ try _ and persuade Ransom."

"Good." Buddy glanced at her comms and stopped. "This should do," she said, as she called Peter's comms, holding her own out between herself and Juno so they could both hear. There was a pause before the call went through. Juno could imagine him seriously considering not picking up. Then it connected, and Juno heard Nureyev say "Hello?"

And it was Nureyev's voice, not Ransom's. The voices were similar, and Nureyev was putting on something of Ransom's affect, but Juno could still tell.

"Hello, Ransom. "

"Hello. I'm sorry, after the blast went off I was forced to return to the ship. I have what we needed, as far as I can tell. I simply —"

"Everyone else's powers stopped working too, Ransom, you don't need to pretend," Buddy said.

"I suspected as much when I couldn't contact anybody. How is everyone? I didn't hear any fighting on my way out, but…"

"Everybody's perfectly fine, if a little shaken."

"Are  _ you _ ok, Ransom?" Juno asked.

"Oh, hello, Juno," Nureyev said, some of the tension in his voice receding. "I'm…" Nureyev sighed. "I'll live."

"Well, Pete," Buddy said, "Juno and myself are heading back to the Carte Blanche. We'll see you there." Then she ended the call, and continued walking, mostly in silence, with Juno ironically wishing for once in his life that he  _ could _ read someone's thoughts so he could figure out what was going on in Buddy's head.

Once they got back to the Carte Blanche, he headed into the kitchen to grab a snack. Buddy went to the kitchen too, and as Juno was grabbing something from the fridge, Buddy opened one of the cabinets.

"Juno?"

"Yeah?"

"We restocked the snack bars back on Inari, didn't we?"

Juno walked over to see what Buddy was talking about. There had been several boxes of snack bars — four, if Juno remembered correctly, one open and half empty — in that cabinet before they left. Now there was just the one half-empty box.

"Should I… talk to him about it?"

"Yes, you probably should."

"Ok," Juno said. He took his snack and headed for his and Nureyev's room. He put a hand on the handle, tried to open it, and found it was locked. So, he knocked on the door. "Ransom? It's me."

There was no response, but Juno heard footsteps, then the door opened just enough to let Juno in. He entered, and Nureyev shut and locked the door as soon as Juno was inside, then walked back over to the bed. Juno saw the missing boxes of snack bars shoved untidily under it.

"What happened?" Nureyev asked.

"We don't know. Someone activated something in the control room, and now nobody can use their powers. We don't know how long it's going to last, but Rita was trying to get the data off the servers when Buddy and I came to find you."

Nureyev took several deep breaths. Juno could see he was shaking.

"Do you want me to stay, or do you want me to give you some time on your own?"

"Stay. Please." Nureyev took another deep breath, and Juno sat down next to him. They stayed there for what Juno realised when he looked at his comms was hours, going from sitting next to each other to lying down next to each other, arms pulling each other close, but they didn't talk. Juno didn't want to push Nureyev to talk. He seemed to still almost be in shock, so Juno let him stay silent until he felt himself drifting to sleep.

* * *

He was woken up — probably hours later — by movement from Nureyev beside him.

He was carefully climbing out of bed, seemingly trying not to wake Juno. As Juno grappled with his urge to ask what Nureyev was doing, he grabbed a scarf and comically large sunglasses before quietly slipping out of the room. He didn't seem to notice he'd woken Juno at all. Quickly, Juno got up and followed Nureyev. He didn't know why he was sneaking around, but in case it was for a good reason Juno would keep quiet too for now. He followed Nureyev through the corridors of the ship until he reached the door of the medbay and slipped inside. Juno waited for a minute before entering. He still did not want to invade Nureyev's privacy. If he was keeping secrets from Juno, Juno was willing to allow him that to a certain extent, but he was curious, and he was concerned for Nureyev's safety. So, he took a deep breath and opened the door to the medbay.

The lights were off, with no dimmer lights for getting around at night like the rest of the ship had because Vespa said they were bad for people who needed rest. As such, Juno could only see Nureyev's silhouette. He had frozen still as soon as the door had opened, with one hand inside a large cardboard box.

"... Juno," he said, some of the tension slipping from his shoulders. "I apologize, did I wake you up?"

"It's fine. I — what's going on? What are you doing in the medbay in the middle of the night?"

Nureyev took something out of the box, and threw it to Juno.

"A surgical mask?"

"We have enough of them. Vespa can spare one, I'm sure."

"Why not just ask her? Why sneak around?"

"Given her dislike of me wearing a mask until this is resolved, I didn't think asking her could end well."

"And stealing it from her stash is gonna go better?"

"Once I have one, she can't prove I didn't always have it."

"Like Buddy can't prove you didn't always have the snack bars?"

"I need to eat, Juno."

"If you  _ really _ don't want to leave the room, I can bring you food. But this isn't about that." He walked over to Juno, took the mask back, put it on and pulled the scarf back up. "If we're going to have a conversation about this, I'd rather not have it here."

"Of course." Nureyev put the box back where he'd found it, and they made their way back to the room in silence. Once the door was closed, Nureyev removed the glasses, mask and scarf, and sat next to Juno on the bed. Juno took his hand, squeezing in what he hoped was a comforting gesture.

"Nureyev, are you… no, of course you're not alright. Dumb question. Do you want to talk about it?"

"I…" Nureyev paused. "It's more of a practical concern, really."

"What do you mean?"

"If — If this is permanent —" There was an obvious shaking in his voice.

"Deep breaths, Nureyev." 

"I'm not a child, Juno," Nureyev said, harshly. "Oh —" he said, at the look that flicked across Juno's face. "I'm sorry. I'm just…" He took a deep breath. "This is… not ideal."

"It's not, I know."

Nureyev took another deep breath. "If this is permanent, I'd rather not have revealed my face to everyone else when I get asked to leave."

"Why would you have to leave?"

"You don't have to try and spare my feelings, Juno. You and I both know I'm not of much use to the crew like this. Maybe when I was younger, but not now."

"You're the youngest one of all of us. And Buddy wouldn't have hired you if she didn't think you could do your job without your powers."

"It's about the quality to which I can do it — wait, what do you mean I'm the youngest?"

"Well, you're younger than me, right?" Nureyev nodded. "And everyone else is older."

"Including Rita?" Juno nodded. "Interesting. But it's beside the point."

"If someone somehow managed to give any random person off the street your power, do you think they'd be able to do your job?"

"No, of course not. But I can't do my job as well as I need to."

"Well, if it comes down to that, we can talk to Buddy about it, but, trust me, I don't think she's about to kick you out."

"I… I'll take your word for it, for now. We should get to sleep."

As they settled down to sleep, Juno wrapped himself tightly around Nureyev, holding him as close as he could.

"Love you," he muttered sleepily as he saw another flash of anxiety cross Nureyev's face. He felt Nureyev kiss him on the forehead as he drifted back to sleep.

* * *

The next few days were tense, to say the least. Rita was hidden away in her cabin almost all the time, trying to decipher the Ares Tech files. As far as he could tell, the issue seemed to be that the files had been scattered and named in ways that made them intentionally hard to find, probably to stop employees not directly involved from finding out what they were doing. Juno decides he was probably best off staying out of her way, occasionally dropping snacks in to keep her going. Jet had been spending most of his time doing checkups and repairs on the ship, making sure no small issue went unnoticed and unfixed. Juno helped out with that where he could. Vespa, at least, seemed better off around the ship. She tried to hide it, but Juno had seen her accidentally phase through things a fairly substantial number of times, and around the ship, there wasn't that reason for her to use her intangibility anyway. Buddy seemed to be largely operating as if nothing was wrong, though she had called off their next heist to give them time to adjust plans around their new limitations, which she spent a fair amount of time working on. Nureyev was mostly staying in his and Juno's cabin. As far as Juno could tell, Nureyev seemed to be trying to secure his finances in case he had to leave. But the tension of everyone being worried and busy really came to a head when Nureyev left the cabin. He mostly tried to avoid being in communal areas when he thought other people would be around, but on this occasion, Juno, Vespa and Buddy had all found themselves in the kitchen.

"What the fuck are you _ wearing, _ Ransom?" Vespa asked. It was a fair question, given that he had added what appeared to be a large, somewhat sparkly sunhat to his ensemble. Nureyev seemed to decide that he really had no good way of answering that question, so he didn't.

"Hey Ransom!"

"Yes, Vespa?" He said, like he hadn't just ignored her.

"Why are you wearing that?"

"I'm not aware if yours have, but my abilities have yet to return."

"Seriously? You're going to keep hiding your face?"

"Vespa—" Juno says.

"And you wonder why we don't trust you?" she said, ignoring Juno. "You know plenty about all of us, but you'd rather dress like an idiot than show your face?"

"Vespa, let him be —"

"Don't tell me what to do, Steel! Just because your boyfriend seems to think he's so special —"

"I don't, I assure you —"

"Then take the mask off and show your face like the rest of us have to do all the goddamn time!"

"I—"

"He doesn't have to —"

"Everybody stop yelling at each other,  _ please _ ," Buddy said, somehow talking over all of them without seeming like she was shouting. "Ransom, I'm not going to force you to show your face. But I hope you know none of us would use the knowledge of what you look like against you."

"I know, Captain," he said, sounding unconvinced. When Buddy didn't say anything else, he left, Juno following shortly behind.

As the door closed behind Juno, he heard Buddy and Vespa start talking again.

"How do we know he's not going to jump ship? He doesn't trust us."

"He won't because Juno won't. We should just try and keep arguments at a minimum, for now."

"He looks like a clown, Buddy."

"He can look ridiculous if he wants to."

* * *

Juno knocked on the door to Rita's room, arms full of snacks. She didn't respond, but Juno could hear the sound of her typing.

"Rita?"

The typing stopped for a second. "Boss?"

"I have snacks."

"You can come in, I never said you couldn't, Mista Steel."

Juno came in, closing the door. "You ok, Rita?"

"I'm just tired, Boss. And annoyed. And hungry?" Juno passed her a bag of snacks. "Oh, thanks, Mista Steel. Anyway —" She shoved a handful of snacks into her mouth and turned her screen around to face Juno.

"...What am I looking at here, Rita?"

"Well, boss, you know that time one of the filing cabinets back at the office got knocked over and instead of re-filing anything you just shoved them back in randomly and then it took you three days to find it the next time you needed something from there?"

"Yeah?"

"This is that, but with  _ millions _ of files, and on purpose. But! I'm Rita! So I have somethin'! But it ain't exactly good news? I mean, it could be worse, but it could be better."

"What do you mean?"

"Do you want the bad news, the good news, or the other bad news first?"

"The good news?"

"Ok, the good news and the other bad news don't make sense without the first bit of bad news, so I'm gonna tell you that first. So! The thing that blasted us was meant to permanently take away powers. But! The testing results I found said everybody's powers came back."

"And the other bad news?"

"I was gettin' to it, Mista Steel! The other bad news is that the only tests I found were from a while ago. The newest ones were a year old, I think? And in those tests, people were only losin' their powers for a few minutes. But I don't think they stopped the testin', I just haven't found any more yet."

"Alright."

"But! It did get less powerful when they tried to get more people at once, so maybe that'll help?"

"Hopefully. Rita, is there anything I can do to help?"

"I mean, if you're super quiet and let me pay attention, could you stay here? Cause I've been sittin' in here on my own for days now, and I'm startin' to —"

Juno sat down on the floor next to her.

"Sure."

* * *

"Juno?"

"Yeah, Nureyev?"

Juno was lying down on the bed. Nureyev was sitting next to him, reading, ostensibly, but Juno could see he hadn't turned a page in half an hour.

"I know you said you weren't angry about me tricking you with my appearance the first time we met. But now I might be stuck like this… I'm sorry."

"Why?"

"I'm sorry I didn't look how you thought. I'm sorry you have to deal with  _ this _ instead of some version of myself I can tailor."

"Nureyev." Juno sat up, slowly, and laced his fingers with Nureyev's. "I can guarantee a million times over that I'd rather have you than any of your personas any day. And hell, I look like I just woke up, I started going grey at 30, I hadn't had a haircut in a year and hadn't shaved in a week the first time we met and I spent two decades being punched in the face for various reasons."

"It adds to your charm, I think. You're a very handsome lady, Juno. Nobody I've met in all these years could compare."

"Sap."

"Maybe I am."

"You are. But — look, Nureyev, even if all the worst things you told yourself about your actual face were true — which, just to make it clear, they aren't — I wouldn't care. I'm not here in this relationship just because I think you're attractive. I'm here because I like you as a person, damnit. Uh, not that I don't think you're hot, it's just a long way from being the only thing that matters."

"I…" Nureyev swallowed down the initial impulse to continue arguing. "Thank you, Juno." There was still a part of him that refused to believe Juno, that told him that Juno was only saying what he felt he had to, but he tried to ignore it as much as possible. There was an open sincerity in Juno's face that made Nureyev want to believe him.

"And if you're worried about the job, though, you should probably talk to Buddy about it."

"I suppose."

"She'll probably make you talk to her if you don't choose to do it yourself."

"I know."

* * *

"So, you don't want to reveal your face because you're worried about your anonymity?" Buddy said. Nureyev nodded. "I can understand, to an extent. My power always marked me out as noteworthy. It's a little hard to blend in when you literally glow. I can imagine if I had your power I might have picked up the same attitude towards anonymity as you have. I suppose that also includes not taking a role in heists that requires you to talk face to face with anyone?"

"Ideally not, no."

"I'm fine taking over from Ransom for those jobs if you need me to," Juno said.

"That may be the case. I'd already assigned you the face-to-face job for the next heist, though, Juno." Juno nodded, and she turned her attention back to Nureyev. "Don't act as if I'm going to tell you to leave, Pete. We're going to need to take more precautions on our next heist, given the circumstances, which means Vespa will need to be somewhere where she can get to people quickly if they require medical attention."

"Seems like a good idea in general," Juno said.

"That's something to consider should this situation sort itself out," Buddy replied.

"Do you think somebody will be injured?" Nureyev asked.

"No. Not any more than I'd expect anyone to be injured on any other heist, at least. We just don't want the only one of us with anything beyond basic first aid training or some self-taught knowledge to be stuck in the building. And that makes you the best person to handle getting into the control room and the vault." Buddy flicked through several papers, then handed Nureyev one of them. He recognised it as a detailed plan of the staff areas around the vault of the building they were robbing.

"Unless something unexpected happens and you need backup, you'll be on your own, but I assume a few months working in the family haven't made you forget how to work on your own."

"Certainly not that I'm aware of."

"Good. Now, here's the plan."

* * *

Nureyev slipped into the darkened building. His footsteps barely made a sound as he headed further into the building, knocking out guards before they could raise the alarm, cutting through high-security locked rooms and disabling sensors. There was a feeling of control and competence settling over him as he worked. This, he knew, without any reliance on his power. His deft fingers picked locks and flipped switches. Guards crumpled before they even realised he was there. He made his way into the control room in what he considered at least an acceptable time. He was somewhat out of practice with this part of the job — the disadvantage of working in a group, he supposed — but the motions and strategies were still there like reflexes. It's less glamorous, but for once in his life, Nureyev wants nothing less than people's attention. 

He can tell, from the comms call, that everyone was waiting for something to go wrong. Every time someone started talking, he held his breath, waiting for a distress call, waiting for something to go wrong. Vespa and Jet check in on him far more frequently than he'd like, making sure he's doing every single step of his job up to their standard. 

The only one who didn't seem even slightly concerned was Buddy. She gave her instructions as normal, then stepped back and let them do their jobs. No double checking, no further confirmations or interference. Just another job. And it was only at the moment he realised this that Nureyev believed she wasn't just telling a comforting lie when she told him she had as much faith in everyone as she ever had. He took a deep breath, and let some of the tension leave him. If Buddy Aurinko believed everyone could do their jobs, he was inclined to listen to her.

So, he executed every step of the plan that was required of him. He waited in the control room for Juno to get the access codes he needed, deactivated the alarms, and was in and out of the vault before the next guard rotation. There was a quiet relief in the air during debriefing, but Buddy didn't draw attention to it. 

He wasn't quite relaxed by the time he went to bed, but he curled himself around Juno and let the former detective's breathing lull him into a deep sleep.

* * *

The next morning, they were both suddenly woken up by a crashing sound from one of the other rooms. Nureyev slowly blinked awake as Juno said something too jumbled by sleep to make sense. As he became aware of himself and his surroundings, Nureyev realised he couldn't feel his arm properly. Juno must have rolled over in the night, lying on top of Nureyev's arm.

"Oh, sorry," Juno said, sitting up. Nureyev pulled his arm in, but instantly found himself missing Juno's warmth.

"Don't worry, I'm not going anywhere," he said, sleepily. "Vespa just dropped a pan in the kitchen." He lay back down next to Nureyev, then, suddenly, bolted upright.

"Wait. Vespa dropped a pot."

"Hmm."

"In the kitchen."

"Hmm."

"Which is not where we are."

"Hmm?"

"Nureyev, are you falling asleep again?"

"Hmm."

"Nureyev, my mind reading's come back."

That, suddenly, registered with Nureyev. He sat up, shuffling a few inches away from Juno so they weren't touching, took a deep breath, and tried to shapeshift.

He could tell ever without looking in the mirror that it had worked. He could feel his face was smoother, younger, he could see the difference in his hands. He breathed a sigh of relief, then lay back down. Juno joined him a second later. He felt himself shift back as Juno took his hand, and let himself drift back to sleep.

**Author's Note:**

> comment or ill cry


End file.
